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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25279990">nothing is as it has been</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkkashi/pseuds/sharkkashi'>sharkkashi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anger, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Autism, Autistic Hawkeye, Blood, Child Neglect, Episode Tag, Episode: s07e23 Preventative Medicine, Fire and Ice Imagery, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Making Up, Parent Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shutdowns, Stimming, brief surgery scene that isn't very graphic, but he gets better and ill explore that in a later fic maybe, daniel isn't the best dad at first and that's mentioned, mentions of death/injury, tagging just in case, they are mentioned in passing, they fight and make up</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:13:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,228</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25279990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkkashi/pseuds/sharkkashi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Doctors are supposed to put people back together!” BJ snaps, because dammit he’s tired and this war is weighing on him more than it has been before. He makes eye contact with Hawkeye, who stares at him, eyes darting all over his face.<br/>“What, so colonels like him can take them apart again?!”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>nothing is as it has been</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>tw for mentions of child emotional abuse/blood and gore! no beta so lmk if there are any errors, i smashed this out at 12am and posted it 2 hrs later :) anywyas here's my emotional support doctors in love</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hawkeye watches Colonel Lacey with a burning anger that scalds his throat and makes him spit fire. The colonel is detached, both from emotion and from reality. He lusts after Hill 403 without regard for life. To him, casualties are an inevitability of war, part of the grand game of chess he seems to be playing. The pieces he plays with are transported off the board on gurneys in helicopters and ambulances. He throws a purple heart at them and continues playing. Because that’s all it is. Lacey sees no value in the pawns and knights and rooks he tosses aside so oft, because he only sees his goal; some hill in Korea that’s only use is as a footnote on his resume, something he can boast about at a dinner party after the war, because he is not the one in the line of fire. His battalion pays the price, yet he keeps the prize.<br/>
</p><p>
BJ is willing to play along with Hawk’s plan. Lacey is as insidious as they come, following the letter of the order but quite frankly spitting on the spirit of it. They take Lacey back to the swamp between them, and BJ sees the way Hawkeye’s smile is stretched too wide. His teeth are bared in defiance and anger. It looks painful. While drinking with a new friend usually meant Hawkeye was excitable and quick with a joke, drinking tonight is almost painful. BJ sips his martini just barely as Hawkeye stands at the still, stiff and ominously silent. Lacy makes some remark and BJ takes up the mantle of entertainer as Hawkeye keeps that awful grin on his face and his hands remain perfectly still at his sides. It’s not long before they are dragging the colonel to OR under the guise of gastritis (or appendicitis! Hawkeye loudly argues).<br/>
</p><p>
Now, both BJ and Hawkeye are doctors. They both know that Lacey is physically fine. But the soldiers he has put in their OR, the ones they have sent home in body bags, they are not. Their scope of influence is limited, BJ’s hands tied by his Hippocratic Oath and the knowledge that they are just a cog in the machine of war, making a difference in one way only. Hawkeye disagrees.<br/>
</p><p>
“Doctors are supposed to put people back together!” BJ snaps, because dammit he’s tired and this war is weighing on him more than it has been before. He makes eye contact with Hawkeye, who stares at him, eyes darting all over his face.<br/>
“What, so colonels like him can take them apart again?!”<br/>
</p><p>
They are loud, louder than they should be, but Hawkeye is so, so still in the heavy silence of the room. BJ wishes that he would move, gesture wildly, even get in his face. But Hawk’s anger has him rooted to the spot with that fake, fake grin on his face. The rage inside of him boils, simmering under his skin, lighting up his nerves. There is too much blood on his hands already, from innocent kids and scared children. His tense shoulders are straining under the weight of all the lives lost, all of the soldiers he could do nothing to save. War is an ugly affair. People come out warped. This scalding hot anger inside of Hawkeye has had time to grow, from a tiny flicker of a spark to a roaring inferno, fed by the expressions of terrified kids not old enough to shave and by the endless hours of surgery. The metal of his soul is far past warped. It is no longer recognizable, drenched in blood, sweat, and tears, a misshapen corruption of what it used to be. The fire roars and Hawkeye lets it. It’s the only thing that can keep him warm sometimes.<br/>
</p><p>
“What have I got to lose?” he demands. BJ glares at him, as if Hawkeye isn’t trying his damnedest to save lives, as if BJ knows how fucked up Hawkeye truly is.<br/>
</p><p>
“Just your self respect, that’s all! You’re a doctor of medicine! You cut into a healthy body and you’re going to hate yourself for the rest of your life!”<br/>
</p><p>
Somehow, BJ’s anger at Hawkeye’s lack of self-respect is what makes Hawkeye lose it. His grimace spasms closer to a snarl than a smile. One step forward is all he takes. Hawk doesn’t trust himself to go any closer to BJ, not when he’s like this. His face feels hot and his feet are numb and Hawkeye is shaking, trembling as he stands there and instead of choking out a joke he spits the truth on the ground, lays it at BJ’s feet so that he can see what this war has turned Hawkeye into.<br/>
</p><p>
“I hate myself right now! I hate me, and I hate you, and I hate this whole life here! And if I can keep that maniac off the line with a simple appendectomy, I’ll be able to hate myself with a clear conscience!”<br/>
</p><p>
As Hawk yells, BJ’s face closes off. His blue eyes are like ice, his lips pursed in a tight line. His anger is freezing cold, biting into Hawkeye’s skin and leaving the doctor feeling empty without the raging fire to fill his chest and keep his body moving. Somehow this is worse. This is much, much worse than when BJ was fighting against him.<br/>
</p><p>
“All right. You want to play God, you do it alone.” BJ leaves and Hawkeye is left the charred structure of a man, propped up by borrowed ego and sheer chance. Not even Pierce’s last taunt can shatter BJ’s icy indifference- it bounces off his back as he exits the washroom and Hawkeye is left with only himself to blame. Without the warm fires to fill his sails with air, he’s left exhausted and hollow. The hole in his chest, sometimes filled by good company and worse martinis, grows, swallowing his whole body in numbness. He scrubs up and Lacey is lucky that Hawkeye has done an appendectomy hundreds of times. The bitter cold that has overtaken him slows his movements and the warm skin and blood that Hawk can feel almost burns as it brushes his gloved hands. The appendix is as healthy as can be, to no one’s surprise. Hawkeye throws it in the scrap bin. He closes and yanks off his gloves. There’s no actual blood on his hands, and he can barely feel his fingers anyway, but Hawkeye swears the cold, congealed hemoglobin clinging to him. It makes him feel sick.<br/>
</p><p>
He barely has time to get to the swamp before there is another round of wounded. BJ rushes by him and Hawkeye shivers. 17 more hours in OR before they are allowed to rest again. BJ goes to shower. Hawkeye slinks to bed. It’s night again, having operated through the day. He had refused food in OR. Objectively he knows he needs to eat, but it’s easier to crawl in bed and let the growl of his stomach distract him from the frigid sensation in his limbs. Even under his blankets he is cold. Hawkeye curls in on himself, allows himself to do something he only did as a very young child when he was very scared. He tucks his knees to his chest, pinning his arms between them, and rests his forehead on his knees. The pressure is nice, almost simulating a hug, and Hawkeye can’t help but to remember the last time he shut down like this. It was when he learned his mother had died, when his dad raged around their house and broke quite a few things. Hawkeye’s anger at his mother’s death had been superseded by his father’s. His loud and heated behavior was the only way Pierce ever saw his father get mad. Daniel had endless patience, right up until he snapped. His rampage burned everything. Hawkeye was no exception. But he was safe, tucked away in his room, curled with his back against the wall and his forehead on his knees as he rocked and hummed to drown out his father’s angry pacing and yelling.<br/>
</p><p>
There’s no one to drown out now, just the stifled whines that keep escaping Hawkeye before he can catch them. In here and not out there was what he was taught, and he sticks to it, even now. Attracting attention at all, when he is like this, frozen, with words out of his grasp and a plausible excuse even farther out of reach, would be a disaster. So Hawkeye presses his tongue between his teeth and bites down as hard as he can, stops rocking, and squeezes his eyes shut tight. He just waits it out, refusing to shiver or twitch or rock or whine. And it works up to a point. The time away from people (from Beej), time to decompress and to sit in the dark without interruption is heavenly. But all good things must come to an end. Someone swings open the door to the swamp and walks in. Charles is on post-op duty, and Hawkeye would recognize that heavy gait anywhere. It’s BJ. He passes Hawkeye’s bunk and goes to his own, rustling around for something or other. Hawkeye has his blanket over his head, he wouldn’t know. There’s a pause in the noise, and then the boots get closer.<br/>
</p><p>
“Hawk?”<br/>
</p><p>
BJ sounds gentle and not at all cold, but Hawkeye doesn’t want to face him, not like this, when he cannot apologize and cannot explain, not as the freezing, bloodsoaked remnants of a man so misshapen he can hardly recognize himself. BJ is still new to this war, still soft and caring and able to laugh without forcing it most of the time. Hawkeye has been here from the start. He’s been dragged down too deep. There’s no chance of getting his head above water now, so why not swim deeper?<br/>
</p><p>
Hawk is shaking, trembling, and he doesn’t even realize until BJ runs a steady hand up and down his back. The pressure is firm and solid and so, so warm. The ice in his limbs starts to melt, just a little, as BJ rubs his back and sits by his side, patiently. BJ must know he’s awake, even if Hawkeye isn’t moving in reaction to his touch. He starts talking like his audience isn’t a man curled like a coward under a blanket, shivering.<br/>
</p><p>
“I don’t agree with what you did, and I wouldn’t do it. But I know why you did it. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at all the bastards who started this war and who are sending kids to die. I’m not upset with you, though.”<br/>
</p><p>
Hawkeye’s face feels far too warm compared to the rest of his body, and it takes him a second to realize he’s crying. His joints ache with the cramped position he has crunched into, and it’s agony to move them and break the ice off to try and face BJ. Hawk still can’t talk, tongue tangled in his teeth. But he shifts over and up, forces his legs down and uncurls his arms from his chest. BJ’s hand leaves his back and Hawk mourns the loss until BJ grabs his shoulder as he sits up. His hand trails down lower, to Hawkeye’s own hand, and the nerves under his skin light up with BJ’s touch. Thawing out his frozen hand hurts, but he wouldn’t be able to enjoy BJ’s hand around his own without it. BJ’s other hand comes to cradle Hawkeye’s face and the surgeon leans into it, closing his eyes and letting himself bask in the comfort. A gentle thumb brushes away his tears and Hawkeye pushes further towards BJ, trying to wordlessly get across his apology.<br/>
</p><p>
I could never hate you, he thinks as he watches BJ smile. The wrinkles around his eyes are from Korea, Hawkeye knows, and so are the smattering of grey hairs that touch his sideburns. But the warmth in his face is straight from California, kind and sunny. It’s different from the fire that had overtaken Hawkeye earlier, built from anger and fear and the need to control something, anything. This warmth gives. It is soft and understanding. It warms Pierce’s bones, shines light on him unsparingly. No part of him goes cold, but no part of him is criticized.<br/>
</p><p>
BJ scoots further down the bed and Hawkeye nearly whimpers at the thought of him going away, but instead he shuffles himself on the bed, slinging an arm under Hawk and inviting him to lay down. Hawkeye tucks himself right up to BJ, feelings his warmth searing across his skin. BJ presses a long kiss to Hawk’s forehead and pulls the covers over both of them. Hawkeye presses ever closer. He doesn’t think he could ever get enough of BJ. He wants to bask in this sunlight and warmth forever. Their legs are tangled together and BJ is holding his hand between their chests, and Hawkeye thinks he can manage a few words, just for Beej.<br/>
</p><p>
“I don’t…,” he starts out. His voice is rough and quiet and catches in his throat. “Hate you. I could never.”<br/>
</p><p>
BJ is silent for a second, and in the dark Hawkeye can see the barest hints of his features, lit by the waning moon peeking through their tent flaps.<br/>
</p><p>
“I know, Hawk. Get some sleep.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i tried to skip the dialogue that was already in the episode, and i did skip The Shoulder Touch but made up for it w cuddling? mayhaps?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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